What we learned from Friday practice at the 2024 F1 Dutch GP

Good. Right now, it really seems the multi-team scrap for victories that Formula 1 was enjoying before the 2024 summer break has been preserved. That’s even with a series of new parts arriving on cars across the grid.

Mercedes led the way on the opening day of practice for the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix thanks to George Russell’s headline effort, with McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finishing FP2 either side of Lewis Hamilton behind Russell. Home hero Max Verstappen was down in fifth, while (less surprisingly) Sergio Perez didn’t even make the top 10.

There is a mitigating circumstance for Red Bull in one key area, as we’ll go on to cover, while in another McLaren looks to have a significant advantage over the rest at this stage. Ferrari struggled on Friday amid reliability issues and unfortunate timing on qualifying simulations for Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc respectively.

But overall things really do look to be very close again between F1’s leading teams. This and much more is what we learned from the first two track sessions on the edge of the North Sea at Zandvoort on Friday.

The pre-FP1 car presentations had revealed the first of an eagerly awaited set of developments from McLaren, which was set to update the MCL38 in the post-summer break run after its last big package had come in Miami.

On this high-downforce track, the orange machine now features a new floor edge, its suspension sheaths are realigned on both axles, its brake ducts have been reshaped, and it now sports a new beam and rear wing.

These were only run on Norris’s car during FP1, as McLaren concentrated on back-to-back data-gathering with its previous arrangement via Piastri’s car. The two MCL38s were both in updated form in FP2.

Both McLarens were sporting updated bodywork in FP2

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Norris led FP1, which began in dramatic storm conditions, as rain and wind gusts of up to 50mph battered the track. F1 cars are generally unruffled with wind speeds at half this level, but only really in consistent wind. Nico Hulkenberg tripped his Haas through several gravel traps as one of the few drivers that did venture out in the gales, where the full wet tyres were used early on.

As the track began to dry the times tumbled, with the course drying up enough for a flurry of laps on the softs to come in right at the end of FP1.

Norris’s average on the medium compound likely to be a critical race tyre for the expectedly dry Sunday conditions came in 0.555s up on Verstappen

Norris started this run with a 1m17.367s and while this was beaten by Piastri and mid-session spinner Verstappen, Norris re-established his position at the head of the order in the final minutes to end the session with a then best time of 1m12.322s.

In FP2, the wind continued to play havoc for the drivers – particularly with the gusts (now down to 12mph but continuing to blow randomly) pushing the cars down the main straight and into the Tarzan right-hander. But the second time around, the absence of rain meant the drivers could head out en masse right away.

After a weather-blighted FP1, Ferrari's FP2 was hampered when Sainz's car developed a gearbox problem

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

The running was disrupted by Hulkenberg crashing at Tarzan, this time when his rear wheels locked in a moment he later theorised was due to him braking harder amid the wind problem at this stretch during the initial phase of running on the harder slick compounds.

When the session resumed after a short delay, Verstappen led the pack out on the softs. He duly went fastest, but the Dutchman’s skittish lap was bested first by Norris, then Piastri – before Russell came through to set a session-heading 1m10.702s.

Hamilton then split the McLarens, while Perez failed to make the top 10 cut in the other Red Bull. He later blamed Red Bull making dramatic set-up adjustments for his gap to Verstappen, but there was also a Turn 12 off that Perez said “lost a couple of tenths”.

At Ferrari in FP2, Sainz missed all but the first part of the session due to a now confirmed gearbox issue arising on his SF-24 and Leclerc’s qualifying simulation effort was only good enough for ninth. But there was mitigating circumstances for Leclerc, as Ferrari later explained he’d abandoned an earlier attempt with fresh softs due to hitting traffic.

The strong chance of FP3 also being rain-affected this weekend (qualifying could also be spiced up with precipitation too) meant the teams were extra keen to switch to long runs after the mid-FP2 qualifying simulations.

Verstappen was first back out again, returning to the mediums, but, as can be seen from the table below, it was McLaren that caught the eye with its strong and impressively consistent pace on this rubber.

Norris’s average on the medium compound that is likely to be a critical race tyre for the expectedly dry Sunday conditions came in 0.555s up on Verstappen. He was also shaded, to the tune of 0.082s, by Hamilton for Mercedes, while Leclerc was 0.245s behind the Red Bull and 0.8s slower overall than Norris.

Long run pace on mediums for Verstappen was slower than McLaren and Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Two things should be noted here, anchored around Ferrari. The first is that Leclerc was running the mediums he’d already used right at the start of FP2 for his long run. The other is likely related in that Leclerc set off with times much gentler on his 11-lap stint compared to how Russell hit things harder for Mercedes and so the Ferrari encountered the degradation (thermal around here) rather later.

In the soft averages (below), things do appear to be much closer, with Red Bull leading the way here.

Both RB20s are running the dramatically different bodywork compared to the car’s first iteration that was introduced at Hungary

This is also given because Verstappen completed more laps on the red-walled rubber having come in and switched to it (Perez stayed on the mediums in the other RB20 throughout his long-run data gathering), compared to Norris. In the other McLaren, Piastri’s more comparative nine-lap stint was 0.717s slower than Verstappen on the softs.

Sainz’s gearbox gremlin meant Ferrari missed out on the soft tyre long running, which could be a problem given the predicted low temperatures for Sunday here mean lengthy stints on the softs could be doable. Yuki Tsunoda managed 50 laps on it in similar conditions last year and Pirelli also didn’t see any signs of graining on the softs used in FP2 on Friday.

How the drivers treat the tyres early in stints is set to be more important than ever here, given how Russell hit that high degradation early in his softs run, based on data Autosport has seen.

Avoiding heavy degradation early in the stints will be crucial

Photo by: Erik Junius

The FP1 rain will have left the track greener than usual in FP2 (with sand from the nearby beach also a factor), so the drivers will really have to learn from how they treated the tyres at the start of their likely only pre-race long runs this weekend.

At Mercedes, there are two other elements to note. One is that Russell also should’ve completed the reverse of the short final stints the McLarens and Verstappen logged, but he couldn’t go back to the mediums he’d started on early in FP2 due to them being damaged in a big Turn 9 lock-up that had him off in the gravel.

Russell also ran the new floor Mercedes had debuted and then pulled back off at Spa throughout Friday practice at Zandvoort, with Hamilton using the old one in FP1. He then joined his team-mate on the newer specification in the second session, while both W15s will keep the Spa floor for the remainder of the weekend.

At Red Bull, both RB20s are running the dramatically different bodywork compared to the car’s first iteration that was introduced at Hungary. There, Verstappen struggled, with the home hero also lacking confidence when pushing in FP2 here. Perhaps more worrying for Red Bull fans was his “we didn’t quite have the pace on the long and short runs and at the moment there isn’t a clear answer on how to improve this” comment that followed the second session.

A boon for them will be that the GPS data traces appear to show Red Bull was running a touch down on engine mode power punch in FP2, with the usual caveat notes about these and fuel loads of course applying. But the first time back at a high-downforce track since McLaren won 1-2 at the last one – Hungary – it looks to have started the Zandvoort weekend strongly in race trim.

Overtaking will be trickier here than compared to Spa, so it will want to avoid slipping behind Mercedes on ultimate pace again on Saturday. Meanwhile, the early-leading Silver Arrows squad aims to redress its one-lap/race-pace balance with set-up changes to come tonight.

Will set-up changes overnight for Mercedes redress its balance problems?

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images